Wi-Fi is the dominant technology for Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN). A wireless communication terminal having an active Internet connection established through a WLAN can generally access all services that the Internet is able to provide. Service as employed herein refers to any computer-implemented service, e.g. information service, entertainment service, booking service, reporting service, monitoring service, payment service, authentication service, communication service and others.
In addition to an active Internet connection, accessing such services generally requires some kind of prior configuration of the communication terminal, e.g. installing a software application that includes some embedded network addresses for communicating with predefined distant servers, or inputting a URL in a web-browser application.
The providing of services through Wi-Fi communication terminals without the need to have an active Internet connection has also been proposed in the art in some rare cases. The publication Bit-Stuffing in 802.11 Beacon Frame: Embedding Non-Standard Custom Information V. GUPTA et al. in International Journal of Computer Applications, Vol. 63, No 2, February 2013 discloses a location specific advertisement service that relies on advertisements, coupons, discounts and commercial announcements being overloaded in beacon frames of a WLAN access point and therefore broadcasted in the coverage area of the access point. Such advertisement service is inherently limited in purpose and usability.